College Student Dies From X-Box Marathon

20-year-old Chris Staniforth died from a pulmonary embolism recently, which is believed to be suffered following an Xbox marathon this past week. This type of blood clot can occur if someone sits in the same position for several hours and has been also linked to employees working on computers several hours, long-distant travelers, and in Chris’ case, video gamers who spend many hours in front of the screen.

Staniforth’s distraught father said his son would spend up to 12 hours playing on his Xbox and other video game consoles.

“He got sucked in playing Halo online against people from all over the world.”

The family of the budding computer programmer have launched a campaign to raise awareness about the health risks of playing online computer games after their son died and hope to draw attention to an already problematic new trend.

Professor Brian Colvin, who is an expert on blood-related conditions states that it is “unhealthy” for youngsters to spend long periods in front of their consoles.

“There’s anxiety about obesity and children not doing anything other than looking at computer screens,” he told The Sun.

Reports of gamers collapsing after spending 15 hours in front of video games are fairly common throughout Asia. In 2005, a South Korean gamer died after playing online games for three days without taking a break.

Microsoft — which manufactures the Xbox — said it “recommend gamers take breaks to exercise as well as make time for other pursuits.”

A post-mortem revealed that Chris, who was offered a place to study Game Design at Leicester University, was killed by a pulmonary embolism, which can occur if someone sits in the same position for several hours.

David Staniforth has now launched a campaign to warn other parents of the dangers.

“Games are fun and once you’ve started playing it’s hard to stop. Kids all over the country are playing these games for long periods – they don’t realize it could kill them,” he told The Sun.

A coroner’s court in Sheffield was told how the youngster — who had no underlying medical conditions — was complaining of a low heart rate before collapsing outside a Job Center.